


Bread, Baking, and Other Disasters

by 1000PaperCranes



Category: Transformers - Aligned, Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Accidents, Again, Author Researches to Prevent Medical Inaccuracies, Awkward Conversations, Awkwardness, Baking, Bread, Brother-Sister Relationships, Brothers, Episode Related, Episode: s3e11 The Riders of Midwinter, Family, Family Feels, Frank Discussions of Puberty, Gen, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, In Accordance With Canon Author Handwaves Medical Inaccuracies, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Male-Female Friendship, Medical Inaccuracies, NONE. Not Even a Little Bit, No Incest, Nudity, Post-Season/Series 03, Pre-Season/Series 04, Puberty, Still NO Incest, Tactile, This Applies to All Other Inaccuracies, Uncomfortable Conversations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2018-11-28 20:49:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 14,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000PaperCranes/pseuds/1000PaperCranes
Summary: Midwinter Morning is on the horizon.  And Dani finally discovers… She. Can't. COOK.In other news, Kade fights physics, with predictable results, and Cody just refuses to stop growing up.





	1. Bread, Baking...

**Author's Note:**

> Schmear - Yiddish - to spread cream cheese on a bagel, or; the amount of cream cheese spread on a bagel.

 

"Hello? Mrs. Neederlander?" Charlie pulls the phone away from his head. When the screeching on the other end stops, he tries again. "Ma'am? It's about the bread." Silence follows on the line, but in the kitchen something rattles then pops and Dani screams. "We need your help."

Mrs. Neederlander is suitably unimpressed when she arrives. The kitchen _is_ a disaster, covered in baking supplies and caked in flour, but when Dani turns and hangs her head, the old woman laughs. "Child, I think you could burn water." Finally, Dani begins to cry, looking around at the mess she's made and the burnt bread in the oven. "Come now, it's not as bad as all that. First things first, we clean up."

The old woman bustles about the firehouse kitchen like she owns the place, and for the moment she might as well. Kade solemnly fishes the charred remains of Dani's tenth attempt from the oven. He scrapes the racks and elements with practiced ease, leaving the oven spotless in record time.

"Well, that's a first," Mrs. Neederlander snarks. "A man who can clean." Kade flicks his eyes at her, but moves on silently to peeling raw dough from the ceiling. How it got there, no one asks. Eventually, the kitchen is clean enough to work in. "Young man," Mrs. Neederlander orders as Kade rolls the mop and bucket out of the room. "Get the rest of your family. We don't have time to dilly dally."

"Yes, ma'am," Kade replies, uncharacteristically polite. He wheels the bucket into the garage to empty it, on the lookout for his brothers and father.

"Why are you being so obedient?" Heatwave asks, failing to shock the smaller fireman.

Kade's face stays grim as he finishes his chore. "We need her," is all he says.

"Kade?" Heatwave sounds just a little worried now. The red-head sighs, pausing.

"Can you contact the others? Mrs. Neederlander wants us all in the kitchen."

\--

Mrs. Neederlander is a slave driver. But she isn't heartless, sensing Kade's strange mood and leaving it alone. After a few false starts the baking goes smoothly enough, each member of the family finding their place on the assembly line. Dani is demoted again and again, until she confined to forming the loaves, saved from being relegated to clean-up by Cody, who volunteers just as Mrs. Neederlander is at her wits end.

"I'll clean up, Mrs. Neederlander. I'm good at washing dishes." Cody carefully does not say that he likes it. He doesn't, and his siblings would never let him live that down. "Dani can shape the loaves." They'll taste good no matter what they look like, he doesn't say.

But Mrs. Neederlander _does_. "Well, I suppose folks won't care if the Rider of Midwinter looks like he's had a seizure as long as the bread _tastes_ good." Fortunately, bread dough isn't that far off from plastic explosives in the shaping department, and with a similar level effort and concentration, Dani does just fine.

Graham's engineering degree is put to work in the weights and measures department. After all, baking is just science for hungry people. Kade and Charlie find themselves putting their strength and stature into it, kneading the dough. The assembly line gets rolling full steam, not skipping a beat as its workers break for food and water. Hour upon hour, the family works together under Mrs. Neederlander's tutelage, producing sheet after sheet of fluffy honey loaves.

"Child," the old crone interrupts Kade with unusual gentleness. "I want you to help me resurrect one of the older traditions." She leads Kade to the far side of the oven, where she's set up a new workstation. "I've got the ingredients for a fortified loaf." When had she done that? None of them had noticed her gone, and certainly they hadn't been distracted long enough for her to go _shopping_. "This goes to the families with nursing babies."

Charlie takes over Kade's kneading. It's easily the most draining step in the process, more so now that the Chief has to do it alone, but it is thankfully simple. He watches his oldest son be bossed about by Mrs. Neederlander. The fireman is lost in concentration as he measures and mixes. A small contented smile appears as he kneads the whole-milled dough. He sets the sticky lump aside to rise and begins again, quietly reciting the recipe under Mrs. Neederlander's silent scrutiny.

Kade rests the second ball of dough as the old woman explains how to knead in dried cranberries, wild blueberries, and roasted crushed chestnuts. "The blueberries will dissolve as the bread bakes, leaving purple spots. That's why this is called Spotted Jolly Loaf." She has Kade plait the loaves, which he does with an easy twist. "Fortunately for us, it can be baked in the same oven as the traditional honey loaf."

\--

When all is said and done, there are a few loaves left over.

"What should we do with these?" Charlie asks, waving a Spotted Jolly Loaf descriptively.

Mrs. Neederlander reaches up, breaking off the tip of the hot plait. "Enjoy them. You worked hard enough." She gestures to the clock and the sunset. They'd been at it for _forty-six_ hours. Dani far longer than that. "Here child." The old woman schmears a large hunk of the hot bakery with maple butter.

Nearly asleep in a floury kitchen chair, Dani automatically takes a bite. Her eyes widen as she chews. "Oh. Wow." She devours the softball sized portion. "Kade, this is amazing."

Too exhausted to even contemplate preening, Kade glows quietly under the praise. "Thanks, sis," he mutters, almost shyly. The family tares into the dark loaf, happy groans of pleasure and exclamations of praise escaping full mouths. Apparently, Kade had gotten the talent for cooking the Dani lacked, in addition to his own share.

"Wait," Graham demands, reaching for the butter, "So you _actually_ burn toast every morning _on_ _purpose_?" He eyes Kade like his older brother really has lost his mind, or never had one to begin with.

"Bag bread is boring." Kade rubs his eyes. "You don't really think I can't figure out the toaster, do ya?" He makes a grab for Graham, intending to noogie out payment for the slight, but misses by a mile. Instead, Kade settles for a drink of water. Cody leans against his oldest brother, trapping the man against the counter until he hands over his glass.

"I don't know how to thank you, Mrs. Neederlander." Charlie sinks his fingers into his daughter's hair as she finally falls asleep sitting up. "Kade, will you put your sister to bed, please?" It isn't a question.

"Should he give her a bath, too?" Charlie smothers a laugh as the engineer needles his siblings, not that Dani could notice. Apparently, excellent baked goods make Graham mischievous. Or maybe that's the sleep deprivation talking.

Kade just shrugs. "Wouldn't be the first time." He scoops his sister into his arms. "Up you go, princess." Dani cuddles into the sure embrace. Kade smiles softly down at her.

"Oh, I see how it is," Mrs. Neederlander snarks, the whole effect made strangely affectionate by her smile. The old crone _likes_ Kade. How weird is that? "Well, take care of your sister." She shoos the fireman away. "This mess can wait for morning." The kitchen isn't quite the disaster area it had been upon her arrival, but it would still need a thorough scrubbing.

"Thanks, Mrs. Neederlander." Kade crouches awkwardly to kiss one elderly cheek over sleeping beauty in his arms. Straightening, Kade grins down at the former Rider of Midwinter. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to write those recipes down for me?"

"Already did." She waves her hand at a scrawl of indelible ink above the oven. "And it's Gladys, dear."

Kade laughs. He kisses Mrs. Neederlander's cheek again. "Goodnight, Gladys." He leaves the kitchen with his sister safely tucked against his chest.

"He's a good boy," Mrs. Neederlander says to his father.

"For you, maybe," Chief Burns rejoins with a smile.

"He just needs to feel needed." She waves his concern away. She'd been on this planet for over eighty years. Some things never change. "Now, I'd better be getting home to Mr. Pettypaws, before the snow gets any worse. He'll be in a right tizzy if I'm late with his dinner again."

"I still don't know how to thank you, but… Thank you." Charlie walks her to the door.

"Well, I wouldn't say no to a ride."

The snow had drifted around Mrs. Neederlander's car. "I think we can handle that. Chase?" The doors of the police car pop open. "We'll dig your car out tomorrow and drop it off."

"Just don’t be late for your other deliveries, sonny-boy!"

"Yes, ma'am," Charlie agrees, finding himself suddenly immune to the old woman's cawing.

"It's Gladys. Now _drive_!"

 


	2. Other Disasters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do not try this at home.

It certainly wasn't as bad as last year, but between baking the bread and delivering it, the snow didn't stop.  The plows were running twenty-four-seven, but unlike the mainland, they weren't manned by people.

Which turned out to be the major flaw in the system.

" _Plow Number Twelve has just taken out all of the mailboxes on Bell Street_."  Charlie's com clicked off, then back on.  " _Graham, I want you and Boulder to take that.  Kade and Heatwave, there's a chimney fire at sixty-three Chestnut Drive_."

"On it!"  Kade jumped up into the driver's seat, planting his feet on the floorboards to pull on his seatbelt as the fire truck sped off of its own accord.  "Take it easy, buddy.  That house'll burn down if we become our own problem."

" _We're on it, too_!" Dani volunteered, the sound of Blades rotors reluctantly spinning up in the background.

" _Belay that_."

" _But Dad_..."  Blades' relieved and victorious chatter undercut Dani's complaints.

" _No, Dani_."  The Chief used his parenting voice.  " _Helicopters and snow don't mix.  You and Blades are grounded, unless we absolutely need you_."

Kade listened to the radio with one ear, mind counting down the seconds before a chimney fire became a structure fire.  It was going to be close.  Dani might just get her wish.

" _Dad_ ," Graham keyed in, effectively silencing their sister.  " _I'm on Bell Street.  I'm not sure what else to do, besides adjust Number Twelve's parameters and put the mailboxes up on their porches_."

" _Sounds like a plan to me, son_."

" _I don't understand_ ," Boulder cut in.  " _Why is it Number Twelve, if there are only four plows_?"

"That's a good question," Heatwave mumbled.

" _And why don't they have **names**_?" Blades whined, with his usual amount of melodrama.

"That's not a good question," Heatwave decided.  Kade snickered.

" _Numbers One through Eleven have been decommissioned_ ," Graham explained.  " _From the look of things, Number Twelve has one foot in the grave.  Dad, this thing should have been replaced last year_."

" _Don't talk about him like that_!"

" _Thank you, Blades_ ," Chief Burns said in his driest voice.  " _Budget cuts.  Thank Mayor Luskey_."

There was a pause while the rescue team fumed.

" _I can program this guy to plow the Luskey's gates shut,_ " Graham offered in a completely reasonable tone.  " _And make it look like a by-product of standard operating procedure_."  Silence met the offer.

Kade cackled.  Keying the com, he howled, "Bro, you are a mad genius!"

" _Do it_ ," Chief Burns ordered, surprising them all.

" _Chief, I must protest_ …"

" _It's all right, Chase.  Cars get plowed in all the time_ ," Charlie soothed.  " _No reason it can't happen to the Luskey's gates_."

The police-bot continued over the radio, no doubt to ensure his alibi with his supervisor.  " _This is revenge, not happenstance_."

" _Yes. Yes, it is_."

"Alright, Dad," Kade praised, just between himself and Heatwave.  "A little Old Maine Justice."  Heatwave pulled up in front of sixty-three Chestnut Drive.  "I got this one, Heatwave."

"What do you mean, you've got this one?"

"I know a trick."  Kade actually wasn't trying to wind his partner up, but he grinned at the way it was working anyway.  "Besides, this is really more of a human sized rescue."

The family was gathered on their neighbor's porch.  Black smoke and sparks billowed from Sixty-three's chimney, fingers of flame licking up above the metal flange.  They were just in time.  If it hadn't been snowing…

After filling a mug with water in sixty-three's kitchen, Kade tromped carefully down into the basement.  The old furnace was soot-stained, indicating years of neglected maintenance.  And it was closely surrounded by laden clotheslines.  This family was either extremely stupid, or extremely lucky.  Or both.  It was probably both.  Ignoring the growl of the confined blaze, Kade took a moment to make sure the flue was open wide.  He pried open the furnace, then poured in the water he'd brought from the kitchen.  The heating fire drowned, and steam shot up the chimney.

" _How did you do that_?" Heatwave demanded over the com line.  The fire crawling its way out of the chimney had simply disappeared.  Kade imagined that under all the gruff the Cybertronian sounded just a little bit awed. 

Tch, yeah right.  "Told you I knew a trick."  Pushing sweaters and lace away from the furnace, Kade made his way out of the house.  "Mrs. Libby?  Fire's out.  Your family needs to keep things away from the furnace and have the chimney professionally serviced _before_ you use it again _and_ every year."  The woman still watching from sixty-one's porch nodded.  Whether she absorbed the instructions remained to be seen.

Kade waded into the snow on the front yard to scope out the roof.  Sparks no longer jumped into the night sky.  From here the masonry appeared intact.  Good day.   "Heatwave: Give me a lift."  The fire truck transformed, lifting his partner to the roofline on his palm.  The snow was thick up here, too; it pushed up awkwardly at Kade’s bunker pants.  "There's a chimney bucket in your cab.  Gimme."

' _I'll gimme you a short drop and a quick stop_ ,' Heatwave thought, proffering the requested item.

Kade pulled a long chain from the bucket.  Stirring the length of it down the chimney, he knocked the buildup of hot creosote down into the furnace.  And probably the basement.  Maybe the mess would serve as a deterrent.  Then again, some people used the fire department in place of a chimney sweep.  _Not_ recommended.

With a crunch and a crack, the snow on the roof let go, pounding to the ground with a prolonged thump.  Kade yelled as his footing disappeared.  His back slammed down on the roof, but didn't follow the snow to the ground.  His leg was caught up on the far side of the ridgeline.  Shifting gingerly, the fireman sat up against gravity, searching for a handhold.

Looking on in distress, Heatwave cursed his enforced lack of autonomy once more.

Suddenly, Kade's boot slipped off.  With a scream, the young man slid off the roof, crashed into the branches of the overhanging apple tree, and flopped to the ground.  Heatwave's shocked swipe for his partner came too little, too late.  In front of the Cybertronian's feet, Kade lay still and silent in the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per the Rescue Bots standard, Kade is doing it wrong. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Get out of the house and call 911, that's it. AT HOME DO: pay a chimney sweep once a year, keep everything away from the stove/furnace/fireplace, wear proper safety equipment.


	3. Snow

The bots’ common frequency erupted into a torrent of Basic.

"Chase, what is that!"  Charlie squeezed his hands over his ears.  It sounded rather a lot like the last time he'd accidentally phoned a fax machine.

" _Heatwave!  You have to slow down_."  Blades’ voice pushed back the stream of noise.  " _We can't understand you_."

"Is someone hurt?" Chase asked immediately, prying information from his panicked team leader.

Heatwave managed to tame his vocalizer.  " _Kade_."

Charlie's heart stuttered in his chest, but Chase changed directions and continued his inquiry without missing a beat.  "What happened to Kade?"

" _Roof_." 

Some distant part of Charlie's mind wondered if it was single words or single syllables Heatwave was limited to, and what exactly the threshold was to go from one to another.

"We are on our way."  Chase activated his siren so that Heatwave would hear it over their common link.

" _Us, too_."  Blades’ voice was strangely calm, his rotors audible in the background.  Forget freezing, his family needed him.

" _Dad, Boulder and I are clearing Lake Street in that direction_."

Charlie found he couldn't answer.  Swallowing convulsively, the chief keyed the mic… and let go.  Hopefully, his children would understand that _he_ was okay.  Physically.

" _Chase_?" Dani asked nervously, " _Is Dad okay_?"

"Chief Burns' heart rate and respirations are elevated."  The police bot drifted an elegant turn onto Lake street.  "I believe he is having a mild panic attack."

It was true, but now definitely wasn't the time.  Charlie clenched his fists and shook his head, forcing his emotions back.  Kade needed him.  He could break down later, _after_ his son was safely watching cartoons from a hospital bed.  "I'm– I'm okay, kids," Charlie forced out.  "Let's just worry about Kade."

Thankfully, the bots took him at his word, and his children knew better than to argue.  It would be true once they were there.  Right _now,_ the Chief felt useless, sitting inside his patrol car, not even needed to drive himself to the scene.  And _that_ encouraged his fears to spin out of control.  He had to _do_ something.

" _We're almost there, Heatwave_."  It seemed kind of backwards for Blades to be comforting his team leader.  " _Are **you** okay_?"

The firebot didn't answer.


	4. Shock

Heatwave stared down at his partner.  Come on, wake up.  Snowflakes drifted down onto Kade's lashes.  But the human's gunmetal eyes stayed stubbornly closed.  A gust of wind spattered Kade with snow from the apple tree's branches.  Raising his hands, Heatwave tried to shelter the fragile human from the elements.  He made a terrible umbrella. 

Come on, insult me. 

…

Do something.

…

…

 _Please_.

Kade's strawberry-gold eyebrows, perpetually singed off, were reappearing as snow collected on the days-old regrowth.  A fine coating of freckles appeared as Kade's body cooled.  He looked pale, and paler still.  The human's breathing remained clear on Heatwave's sensors, but he could not see it with his optics.  His audio receptors strained to track Kade's heart rate as it plummeted from a panicked one-eighty to just fifty. 

The Cybertronian's own physiology responded inversely.  He panted shallowly through his mouth.  Energon rushed through his body causing static to scratch unhappily along under his armor.  The static drowned out the sound of Kade's heart.  Heatwave twitched.  He didn't know what to do with himself.  Terror clawed at his processor.  His spark seized when Kade's breathing skipped for a short eternity Heatwave was unable to clock in real time.

The man’s breathing resumed, much slower, cool puffs blowing the snowflakes into little swirls.  Kade’s lips rapidly turned blue, his freckles now standing out dark across the bridge of his nose and between his eyes.  He was eerily still, chest not even appearing to move over his slow breaths.  Purple energy crawled across Heatwave’s optics, further distorting his perception of his partner.  Static scratched at Heatwave’s audials, but he desperately tried to push it away, to listen through it, to hear the life in Kade. 

To hear the life slipping out of Kade.

A gentle hand clasped Heatwave’s shoulder, but only a dim awareness pierced his sharply narrowed focus.  All he could see and hear, all he cared about, was Kade.  A voice was talking to Heatwave, but he couldn’t listen, it didn’t matter.  Something blue appeared in his line of vision, looming toward Kade.  Heatwave’s ventilations raced, his mind grasping at nothing, unable to move, unable to protect his partner.

“…help Kade,” Blades’ voice, low and soothing, filtered into Heatwave’s scrambled consciousness.  The looming mass resolved into Chief Burns, kneeling over his fallen son in the deep snow.  “You need to come with me,” Blades murmured.  “There’s nothing we can do for him.”  A distressed whine slipped through Heatwave’s static choked vocalizer.  “The Chief and Dani will help him.  We’re in the way.”  Blades tugged on his leader’s arm, gently guiding him toward the road, but not forcing him to turn away. 

Graham hurried past them, backboard over his head.  He dropped it in the snow next to his brother, moving to hold the unconscious firefighter’s head between his half-frozen hands.  Dani appeared around their other side, arms heavy with equipment, which she dropped carelessly next to the backboard.  With sure hands, she straightened Kade’s limbs.

“His vitals are really messed up,” Graham reported quietly.  “Think Doc McSwain can handle it?”

“She’ll have to.”  The Chief’s face and voice were grim as they carefully log-rolled Kade onto the backboard.  “Even if he needs to go inland, no one can get out here in this storm.  Visibility is nil, and seas were at 14 feet this morning.”

Dani opened Kade’s bunker coat and unfastened his pants.  Pulling aside his thin underclothes, she looked and felt for damage.  “His breathing is way too shallow and slow, and it’s not getting better.”  She swore hard, handing Graham a contraption built around some kind of stiff balloon.  He fitted it over his brother’s nose and mouth.  Chief Burns reached out, squeezing the balloon with one hand on Graham’s count of five. 

“His ribs are broken pretty badly.  I can’t tell if there’s internal bleeding.  We have to get him to definitive care.”  Dani looked up, eyes sliding over Blades and Heatwave then flicking to Chase and Boulder parked in the street.  “Chase!”  The police bot transformed, approaching her.  She waved him down to avoid shouting over the wind.  “Someone needs to bag Kade.  Do you think you can carry him, Dad, and Graham?”

Chase looked carefully over the humans, considering their mass and relative positions.  “I cannot.”  Dani looked stricken.

“What about just Kade and me?  I can handle breathing for him on my own.”  Chase considered the Chief’s suggestion silently, optics tracing over the humans as he measured and calculated.

“Affirmative.”

“ _Oh, thank god,_ ” the man whispered.  “Move, Graham.”

When the Chief was ready, with his knees squeezing the foam blocks on either side of Kade’s head and his hands squeezing the breathing contraption, Chase scooped the human’s and the snow beneath them into his hands.

“ _Good thinking_ ,” Blades muttered.  Heatwave turned his head, watching the blue bot carry the humans up the street until they disappeared into the blizzard.  And then he kept watching.

“C’mon, Heatwave.  Let’s follow them,” Dani ordered as Blades wheeled the glitching firebot around by his arm.  He spared them a glance, protective instinct dictating that he ascertain the pilot’s position.  She stood atop Blades’ shoulder, pointing heroically up the street.  “Blades?”  The helicopter nudged his team leader into motion. 

Heatwave was numb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per usual, I'm failing at internet. I'm pants at tagging: Are there any tags you guys think I need? Or any other comments/suggestions? I'm also terrible at chapter titles. Someone save me from myself.


	5. Home

Heatwave stayed numb until Charlie Burns carried his oldest son into the firehouse.  He’d been there, staring through the hospital windows, attentive as a sentry, but the entire ‘assignment’ was a blur.  Now, Heatwave stood here, still useless, dripping snow, as the exhausted family claimed sanctuary.

His optics took in everything.  The humans were unwashed; clothes worn to staining, hair lank, and they smelled.  Kade was barely conscious, drugged into a stupor for the trip.  His clothes were gone, replaced by thin, vividly blue garments of the same manufacture used by the hospital nurses.  His leg was bound beneath its covering.  Somewhere along the line, Heatwave had learned that the humans healed broken bones by sealing the damage in a brightly colored, rigid casing.  Kade’s binding was made of a vaguely flesh-tone fabric.  Presumably not broken.  Dani had said that Kade’s ribs were broken, but his chest was entirely unbound.

Maybe she was wrong.

Hopefully she was wrong.

Graham bumped Kade’s injured leg with the door to the living quarters.  The redhead gasped, then grunted; assaulted first by the pain in his leg, then by the pain in his ribs.  Heatwave had his answer when the suddenly broad movement of the redhead’s chest stalled abruptly in the moment.  Binding the man’s chest would have compromised his already shallow breathing. 

Kade was gone from Heatwave’s sight again.  He tried to tell himself that the Chief would protect his son, whether drippy firebots could see them or not, but it just didn’t stick.  Heatwave was terrified for his human and had been for the last five days. 

Kade had been repaired by morning, but he had refused to reactivate.  He’d stayed stubbornly inert as his family paced and hugged and fretted until Cody had crawled gingerly into Kade’s hospital bed.  The youngling had cried against his brother’s bare shoulder until he’d fallen into recharge.  In the morning, the fireman had threaded the fingers at the end of his black-bruised arm into his youngest brother’s hair.  Cody had woken a few minutes later with a happy hum.  “ _What did I do to deserve this_?” the redhead had mumbled into blonde hair.

Heatwave had nearly stalled. 

The sound of Kade’s voice had been new again, a potent drug, weak and slurred though it was.  He had eavesdropped on every word the man said during the twenty-four-hour observation period, and the discharge sequence, and every foot of the journey home - Chase had left his commlink open.  Heatwave wished the humans had left the door open.  He was sealed off from Kade in the garage.

Several eternities later, Graham flitted back into the garage.  “Here,” he said, toggling on the large monitor.  “I figured you guys might like to keep an eye on Kade, now that he’s home.”  By ‘you guys’, he meant ‘Heatwave’.  The firebot didn’t notice.

The four Cybertronians crowded around the screen.  On the other end of the feed, Charlie Burns was carefully depositing his eldest in bed.  Kade wheezed in pain.  “ _Daddy_.”  The Chief curled around his damaged child, murmuring comfort. 

Heatwave sat down hard, resuming his vigil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention this earlier but... Why in all hell is BREAD SEX a tag!?


	6. Simple Things

These days, Kade slept a lot.  The hospital staff insisted it was a good thing, but Charlie couldn’t help worrying every time his son ceased to respond.  He manfully resisted the urge to wake his oldest just to be sure he could.  Kade was fine.

Kade _would be_ fine.

Charlie turned to the small bathroom his parents had installed between his room, now Kade’s, and Woodrow’s, now Graham’s.  It had been nearly a week since he’d showered, he told himself, forcing down a flurry of panic in his chest as Kade disappeared from his line of vision.  No one wanted a stinky chief of police, least of all his children.  The familiar ivory paint and blue tiles _were_ soothing, but Charlie still left the door open in case his baby needed him.

Kade’s toothbrush and shaving mug sat neatly on the counter next to a tin of hair clay.  Charlie mused on the fact that his most abrasive child was also the neatest as he scanned for other signs of the young man in the room.  The redhead’s mint and green apple shampoo was tucked into a corner of the shower. 

Getting clean felt good, even if it did keep Charlie away from his injured child longer than he was comfortable with.

Kade was sitting up in bed when Charlie emerged from the bathroom.  “Don’t get dressed,” the young man requested then looked away.  Kade’s arms flexed around his knees.

Charlie swallowed a sigh.  It was nothing to be ashamed of, and Kade knew that.  He also _hated_ needing help to do things he felt he should be able to accomplish alone.

Kade hadn’t been escorted to the bathroom since he was five.

Charlie smiled fondly at the memory of his little boy dragging him by two fingers into the bathroom after they’d put Graham and Dani to bed.  “ _Look what I can do_!” he had declared, clawing himself out of his clothes and climbing into the bathtub.  “ _Don’t help me_.”  Kade had then proceeded to shower, awkwardly but proficiently, all on his own.  The next night it had been: “ _I don’t need help, Daddy._ ”  It had taken Charlie weeks to just leave the little guy to it, but Kade had always been Kade.

Now, the Chief’s independent son sat under a cloud of humiliation unable to meet his eyes.

Charlie sat on the bed and turned Kade’s face toward him, careful of the small greening bruises that were scattered there and everywhere.  “It’s only for a little while,” he promised.  Slowly, his son’s guarded gray eyes lifted.

\--

A full circuit of the bathroom was enough to have Kade teetering exhaustedly against Charlie’s shoulder.  It was lucky that the fireman could actually stand on his injured leg, though walking was somewhat more precarious.  He lowered the young man back into bed before he could fall asleep on his feet.  With a relieved sigh, Charlie’s precious child was sleeping once again.  The Chief smiled as he pulled up the freshly changed covers; one of his other lovely children was surely to thank.

For a moment, the father wrestled with the urge to simply crawl back into his son’s bed and bury in nose in damp red locks until this was all over, but the fact remained that he’d just showered twice, and his children preferred him clothed.  His stomach agreed, loudly. 

That didn’t mean he couldn’t take a piece of Kade with him, though. 

Charlie rummaged in his son’s drawers.  He didn’t know whether to be proud or disturbed when he uncovered a stash of condoms and dental dams, so he just checked the dates before pushing them aside.  Selecting an old pair of sweats, Charlie tried to make it look like he hadn’t been snooping, but quickly gave up.  If Kade noticed, if Kade _cared_ , he’d just have to tell his son the truth.

In the hallway, his other children were slumped against the walls.

“What’s going on here?”

“Nothing, Dad,” Dani assured with a slightly dim smile.  “Just waiting our turn.”

Charlie blinked.  “He’s naked.”

“Don’t care!” Graham declared brightly, popping to his feet and darting into his brother’s bedroom before anyone could react.

“Well okay then.”  Charlie shook his head with a bemused laugh.  “Have you kids showered and eaten?”

“Showered: yes.”  Dani bit her lip.  “Eaten: _no_.”  She dragged the word out uncomfortably.

“ _But_ and or _because_?”  The Chief raised a brow at his daughter, holding in a laugh.  His kids sometimes.

“Well… Mrs. Neederlander’s in the kitchen.”

Charlie’s eyebrows threatened to defect to his hairline.  “Oh.”  Huh.  “Well, let’s go see what she wants.”

“I think she wants to make dinner, Dad,” Cody offered as he and Dani climbed to their feet.  The kids had obviously been sitting outside Kade’s door for quite some time.

Wait.  Dinner?  Had it really been that long since he’d eaten?  Charlie’s stomach growled again.  _Definitely_ dinner time.  “She didn’t bring Mr. Pettypaws, did she?”

“No.”  Cody pranced ahead of his father, almost as if he wished to show off the grouchy old woman.

Said grouchy old woman was stirring a pot on the stove.  She ladled out a bowl of thick soup.  “There should be enough here to last you a few days, unless that bottomless pit gets his appetite back.”  She turned around and promptly gave Charlie the stink eye.  “Eat,” she ordered.  “You look like you just escaped the holocaust.”

Well, there was no way it was _that_ bad, but the Chief didn’t argue with Mrs. Neederlander as she thrust the bowl into his hands.  He didn’t sit down, just raised a brow at the woman, daring her to test his patience.  She filled an oversize mug for Cody, who looked between the adults, and his sister devouring her portion at the table, unconsciously licking his lips.  Mrs. Neederlander skimmed the top of the pot to ensure the next bowl contained primarily hearty broth.

She stalked from the room.

After waving Dani back into her seat, Charlie followed her.  “He’s naked,” the father warned lightly as the elderly woman reached Kade’s room.

“Mazel-tov,” she answered, opening the door without the slightest hesitation.  Eh, the salty old crone would probably enjoy the show. 

Not that there was much of a show.  The blankets were up around Kade’s chest, but surprisingly, he was awake, drowsily carding his fingers through Graham’s hair.  He opened his eyes, turning his head furtively in the direction of the unfamiliar footsteps crossing his floor.

“Mrs. Neederlander?”  He froze, causing Graham to whiffle in his sleep.  Kade’s fingers resumed their combing.

“Sit up,” she ordered, “You need to eat.  And what did I tell you?”

“Sorry, Gladys,” Kade yawned, eyeing the bowl with trepidation, “but it’s my turn to play pillow.”

“He’ll get over it,” she decreed.  “I know you’ve got a concussion, you dolt, that’s why I didn’t turn on the light.”  Under her glare, Kade pushed himself to sitting, blankets falling to his waist.

“What?  What is it?”  Graham asked, disoriented, but also sitting up.  He rubbed his eyes, squinting.  “Mrs. Neederlander?”

She scowled at the younger man.  “Go back to sleep.  I already fed _you_.”  Graham shrugged, flopping down.  He pressed his face against his brother’s hip, inhaling so deeply Charlie could hear it from the doorway.

Kade looked down at his brother with his hands held unsurely in the air.  “Why does everyone keep doing that?”

“I guess you don’t smell like liver.”  Mrs. Neederlander sat on the edge of the bed, batting Kade’s hands away when he reached for the bowl.  “I’ll take care of this.  You take care of that.”  By ‘that’, she meant Graham.

Kade caught his father’s eyes over the old woman’s shoulder, silently pleading.  Charlie just shook his head with a smile and tried to look busy with his own bowl of soup.  It was good.  Motherly.  Kade sighed, but allowed himself to be fed, floating his fingers absently through Graham’s hair once again.

Charlie brushed his hand over Cody’s head, and the two of them leaned against the doorjamb, eating their dinner and watching Kade faux-argue with Mrs. Neederlander.  At one point, Kade jumped with a squeak.  Mrs. Neederlander looked at his face, only to find the young man looking at his lap.  Beneath the covers, Graham –still asleep– had wrapped his arms around his brother’s thigh, hugging it like a teddy bear.  The old woman threw her head back and laughed.  Laughter bubbled out of Kade, too, and he wheezed in pain between guffaws, arms wrapped tightly around himself to brace his broken ribs for the duration.


	7. Morning

Cody crawled out of the cordwood of siblings on Kade’s bed.  He wrapped his arms around his father’s waist and the two of them shuffled out of the room.  School couldn’t wait any longer.  They left the lights off, navigating to the kitchen by wrote.

“Dad,” Cody began, pensive even for the early hour, “Why does Kade smell so good?”  It was true, Kade usually smelled clean and earthy, and a bit smoky, with the faint strains of his soap and shampoo clinging beneath it all.  “Is it some kind of cologne?”  Ah, there it was.

“No.”  Kade had stopped wearing cologne after _Boulder_ told him it smelled bad.  On top of that, Kade hadn’t had the energy to comb his hair, let alone get dolled up, since the accident.  “Bathing and wearing deodorant are what keep a man smelling nice.”  Charlie gave his youngest son a significant look.  “I like the way all of my children smell, so I’m not a very good judge, but I’d say that right now Kade smells extra good to us because we’re trying to reassure ourselves that he’s alright.”

Cody handed his father the milk.  “I can’t stop seeing him–” Cody swallowed convulsively.  “I know he’s right there but… I don’t want to go to school.”

Charlie sighed.  “I know, son, but Kade _will_ be here when you get home.  I promise.”  He brushed Cody’s bangs out of his eyes.  “You’ve already missed an entire week.  If you get too far behind, you’ll be held back.”  At this point it was probably an exaggeration, but it had the desired effect.  “Besides, I’m sure Frankie’s been missing you.”

“Yeah, I know.”  Cody picked at his fingers.  “I miss her, too.  It’s just…”  Cody didn’t seem to know just what it was.

Charlie decided to take this moment when his son was feeling awkward as an opportunity.  “Cody, I know a lot is happening to your body right now, but Kade, Graham, and I all used to be teenage boys.”  Cody’s face paled, obviously horrified by the notion that The Talk might have a Part Two.  “I know you don’t want to talk to me about any of this stuff, but Kade really does seem to have it figured out.”

Cody swallowed, ripping off the end of a fingernail.  “Why can’t I ask Graham?  Kade will make fun of me.”

“I’m pretty sure Graham is still asking, too.”  He was a little old, but he was also a lot shy.  “And I’m not sure where he gets his information.  If there’s something Kade doesn’t know, he’ll just come right out and ask me.”

“And you know everything.”  Cody wasn’t being sarcastic, he seemed hopeful, doubtful, and grossed out.

“No.”  Charlie smiled encouragingly at his son.  “But I do know a doctor with absolutely no modesty.”

“Doc Greene?” Cody brightened. 

 _Weird_ , but okay.

“Doc Greene is not a medical doctor,” Charlie reminded Cody, “but he did manage to make Frankie.  I’m sure he’d be willing to answer your questions.”  That was apparently too much information for Cody, who now looked like he’d just stepped barefoot into something sticky.

“Okay, Dad.  Can we talk about something else, _please_?”

Looking down at his son’s nearly packed lunch, Charlie couldn’t resist.  “Cream Pie or Ding Dong?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had initially intended to keep this together with the next chapter, but the next chapter is getting pretty long. And I'm struggling with it, so I figured I'd go ahead and post this now.
> 
> Also, I know technically the Midwinter is the winter solstice, but a few days before of Christmas and the episode makes it sound as if that is well over. Not to mention, the unlikelihood that this particular storm fell so that people ran out of food on exactly that day; statistically it was more likely to have been some time in February. So, Midwinter Morning doesn't refer to the astrological midwinter, but to a day in the middle of the snowy season, by my logic: February. And since this is my story, my logic reigns sorcerer supreme.


	8. Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody goes and makes things all awkward. Kade does his best to make it worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I STRUGGLED with this chapter. This reflects on something I was told by a nurse, that I wish someone could have said sooner. For girls, it really would be beyond reasonable for anyone but a doctor, but I think guys can just get away with it.

Later that night, Cody hovered in Kade’s doorway as the man spoke into the phone.  “–lost an argument with a tree on the way down…  Busted a couple ribs…  Look, Dottie,” Kade caught sight of Cody in the doorway and gave his baby brother a come-in-or-get-out look without missing a beat.  “Can you activate Wendy for me?  She’ll pass clearance and I need the help…  You’re the best.”  He hung up, absently handing the phone to Graham.  The full force of Kade’s attention was a little intimidating, especially under the circumstances.  Cody considered the get-out part of his brother’s previous look, but the confused concern on his face now was tempting, and the teen ended up trying to shrink into the doorjamb.  “What’s up, Code?”

“I– uh…”  Cody hemmed at the threshold, picking at the paint on the jamb.

Kade opened his arms.  Graham watched them like an unpredictable experiment.  Cody crawled into the fireman’s embrace, inhaling his soft scent.  Dad was right about that, maybe he was right about this, too.  After a few seconds, Cody found his own place on the bed, but didn’t speak.  He picked at Kade’s worn blue blanket.

“Cody, you have to tell us what’s wrong.”

The kick Kade jabbed at the engineer was muffled by the covers.  Graham was right though.

“So, uh… I’ve been waking up with, uh…”

“An erection?” Graham supplied.  Cody missed the sharp look Kade shot over his head, busy pulling at a loose thread on his pants.

“Yeah, for a while.”  Cody hunched further in on himself, scratching at both feet.  “Dad said that was normal, and that I’d also have…”

“Nocturnal emissions?”  It took Cody a second to place the term, but then he nodded.

Kade sat forward, pulling Cody’s hands away from his toes in a calculated grip.  “Graham?”  When Cody looked up, Kade was giving the engineer a flat, cold look.  “Get out.”

Graham looked ready to protest, but Kade’s face didn’t soften.  Cody’s younger older brother caved, retreating from the room.  When the door closed behind him, the teen looked back to his hands.  Kade’s calloused mitts were large and warm around them, and dotted with decaying bruises. 

Matching their palms, Cody compared their hands.  Kade’s were hard and flecked with scars.  And huge.  Somehow, Cody had never realized just how _big_ his oldest brother was, right down to his long, brawny fingers.  It never mattered if the redhead towered over Cody, or fought with him, or just flat out manhandled him; Kade was just his brother, unimpressive and indomitable.  Suddenly, he was a very large man and inexplicably vulnerable.  The two images didn’t fit, becoming a dissonant reminder of the last week.  Kade was so large he surrounded Cody.  It was a protection and comfort he had always taken for granted, but he’d almost lost it.  Some unruly snow and a misplaced tree and in seconds his brother had been a casualty.

Heatwave’s panicked kreeling had been the only thing to prevent him from becoming a fatality.  Seconds and Cody could have been sitting here in a void with cold hands.  Kade had almost _died_ , and now Cody was bothering him with dumb puberty stuff. 

Cody felt curdled inside, and stupid.  “I know you don’t wanna talk about this stuff.”

“Did I say that?”

“You didn’t say anything,” Cody accused.  They had been sitting in silence for a while.

“Puberty sucks,” Kade declared with feeling.

That startled a laugh out of Cody.  “Yeah,” he agreed, fighting the urge to wipe away tears that weren’t falling.  “So, I’ve been having… uh…”  Jeez, this was embarrassing.

Kade just waited, patiently letting Cody fiddle with his hands.

“Wet dreams,” Cody finally choked out.  “I’ve been having wet dreams and I don’t know how to stop them.”

Kade raised an eyebrow.  “I think wet dreams are kinda fun.”  He shrugged when Cody gave him a disbelieving look.  “Messy,” he conceded, “but fun.”

“How could waking up sticky _possibly_ be fun?”

“Oh, it not.”  Kade shrugged, grinning at the even more incredulous expression Cody had mustered for him.  “That part sucks, but I remember my dreams.  That more than makes up for it.”

“God, you are weird.”

“Sure,” Kade agreed easily.

Something else occurred to Cody after a second.  “You still get them?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m doomed,” Cody groaned, burying his face in his hands.  It was amazing how many times his throat had closed up in the last half an hour; he was _not_ a cry baby.

Kade considered his little brother carefully for a minute.  “Why are you doomed?”

Cody’s face threatened to burst into flames.  “Because I… Because I… It’s not that I’m having… wet dreams, it’s what I’m dreaming about.”  He blinked back tears.  This was _humiliating_.

When Cody didn’t continue, Kade just asked, “What are you dreaming about?”

“I’m dreaming about… about… Frankie.”  Silence met Cody’s declaration.  His big brother’s expression was soft, but expectant. 

Geeze, Kade was really going to make him say it, say every bit of it.

Cody really was crying now.  “Sex.  I’m dreaming about having… _sex_ … with Frankie.”

Kade’s calloused, scarred, burn-pocked hands were soft as they wiped away Cody’s tears.  “That’s tough, Code.”

“What do I do?” Cody would have wailed except he _couldn’t_.

“Jack off.”

Cody started, reeling back so hard Kade’s cool hands slipped off his burning cheeks.  “ _What_?”

“It helps.”  Why did Kade have to make it sound like everything was so simple?  Cody stared at him aghast.  “Sex helps more.”

“ _Kade!_ ”

The redhead gestured placatingly.  “I didn’t say you were ready for _that_ , but if you’re having wet dreams you are definitely old enough to masturbate.”  The technical term was jarring, and Cody grimaced hard.  “Gonna have to get used to that one,” Kade ruffled Cody’s hair, grinding the heel of his hand in a little.  “People actually say masturbate.  ‘Nocturnal emissions’? _Yeesh_.”  Cody giggled.  Graham’s medically correct verbiage hadn’t exactly been pleasant.  “ _Please,_ don’t ask me for instructions.”

Cody blushed from armpits to earlobes.  “ _Kade_.”  His brother simply looked at him, pleasantly receptive.  The full horror of Cody’s situation swung back around, punching him in the face.  “What if… What if…” Cody was beginning to hate expressing himself, but Kade made no effort to read his mind.  Which was kind of nice, now that he thought about it.  He wished he could _stop_ thinking about things that made him so uncomfortable.  “What if I think about Frankie when I’m awake, too?”

“Is there something wrong with Frankie?”

“What? _No_.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“ _Kade_.”  How could his brother be so dense and hold down a girlfriend?  And the mental image that went with that was, “Ugh.”  Cody rubbed his hands over his face, grinding them into his eyes like it might bleach his brain.  “You don’t understand.”

“Then make me understand.”

“She’s my best friend!  If I… If I…” Cody took a steadying breath, digging his knuckles into the bed.  “If I think about her when I… Isn’t that disrespectful?”  His father’s admonishments about respecting women beat on the interior of Cody’s skull.

Chuckling, Kade leaned back.  “No.”

“Really?”

The redhead grinned.  “It’s flattering.”  Waving his hands, he hastened to add, “but don’t try telling her that.” 

That went against Cody’s instincts.  Frankie was his best friend.  “Wouldn’t that be taking advantage of her and then lying about it?

Kade snorted. “Your thoughts are your own, Code.  They don’t hurt Frankie by existing, even if you masturbate to them.”  He shrugged.  “It just means you’re attracted to her and you’re allowed to find anyone you want attractive.  Don’t let anybody tell you different.”

“Anyone?” Cody asked skeptically.  His classmates sure had a lot of opinions about who liked whom.

“Excepting blood relatives and, like, livestock; yeah, anyone.”  Kade appeared pensive for a moment, as if something had just occurred to him.  “I take that back.  Anyone except blood relatives and _kids_.  Stay away from kids.”  A thought.  “I really don’t care if you have a thing for llamas.”  Another thought.  “The llamas don’t care either.”

The combination of expressions that train-wrecked on Cody’s face had Kade laughing out loud.  Muttering an oath, the redhead curled around his arms.  Every time Kade breathed deep, stalling his mirth, he’d look up, catching a glimpse of his baby brother’s face and burst anew into painful guffaws.  The fits continued until Cody finally wiped his cheeks with an infected grin.

“Now, any more pressing matters before Wendy gets here and I have to explain why I fell off the damn roof, _again_?”  Kade smiled lightly at Cody, making the statement an actual invitation.

Cody couldn’t believe he was even thinking about asking this, but nobody else had ever told him anything useful before.  And it wasn’t like he could ask the person whose opinion he really wanted.  “What if there’s something wrong with me.”

“Too late.”

“Jerk,” Cody retorted, knocking the smirk off Kade’s face by punching him in the thigh.

The man let out a sound of real pain, pulling his leg protectively toward his chest.  “Jeez, Cody if you’re gonna hit me, hit the good side!”  Kade rubbed his thigh, then dropped it back to the bed.  “Alright, we’re even.  Explain.”

“What if there’s something wrong with the way I look, uh… down there?”  Cody’s stomach clenched, the fear very real despite every logical argument he’d used to reassure himself.

His brother considered the question for a moment that passed at roughly the speed of plankton.  Then he shrugged.  “Let me see.”

“What?  No!”

“Oh, come on.  I’m an EMT, what do I care?”  The redhead motioned impatiently for Cody to do as instructed.

“I can’t do that.”  Cody crammed both of his hands behind his ankles, shielding his groin, as if Kade could see through his clothes.

“ _Ugh_.”  Kade rolled his eyes hard, yanking the blankets off his lap.  “There.”

“ ** _Kade!_** ”  Except Cody couldn’t not look.  Cody wrenched his eyes, disbelieving, to his brother’s face.  Kade was smirking, but Cody knew he was making a serious point.

“You’re turn,” the redhead said, invoking a backward version of the ancient dare. 

“But, you’re so… big.”

“Proportionate,” Kade corrected.  “All of you is smaller than me, squirt.”  The redhead gave his brother a demanding, exasperated look.

Cody grunted, but knelt up, jerking open his fly with shaking hands.  He pushed pants and shorts down his thighs.  Crossing his arms protectively over his chest, Cody turned his head as far as it would go, glaring at the door, face flaming.  He maintained a stony silence while Kade said nothing.  Cody felt his older brother lean forward inquisitively.

“So that’s what a penis looks like.”

“ _Kade!_ ”  Cody whipped back to center, only to find his brother looking up at him.

Kade’s wide gray eyes were guileless as he said, “Everything is pink and perfect and right where it should be; you’re fine.”

They stared at each other for a moment.  Then by sudden silent agreement, covered themselves up.  When Cody looked up from his waistband, Kade had sunk back into the pillows.  The redhead was pink from his navel to the tips of his ears, but not, Cody thought, from embarrassment.  His freckles stood out unusually and his lips were slightly blue.

Cody was no doctor, but it looked like Kade’s brain was suddenly sending blood to all the wrong places.  “Are you okay?”

Kade’s eyes were heavy lidded and glassy when they blinked open.  “Yeah.  Just a little scrambled.”  He grinned weakly, huffing a little puff of air that was probably supposed to be a laugh.  “I think my brain is mad at me.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Kade took so long to form a response that Cody was beginning to suspect he’d fallen asleep.  “Get Dani?”

A bolt of worry shot through the blonde.  “Are you _dying_?”

Kade chuffed again.  His head twitched; it was probably supposed to be a negative shake.  He licked his lips, speaking slowly, “Nah.  I’m cold.”  Before Cody could offer he finished, “And it would be weird to cuddle with you right now.”

Not mollified in the least, Cody raced from the room.  Dani didn’t seem to share his concern, and when he finally dragged her to Kade’s room, the redhead’s skin color made sense.  He was pale, every one of his bruises standing out.

“Cody said you needed a blanket,” Dani mentioned, crawling carefully over her big brother and laying down.  “What happened?”

“He needed to talk.”  Kade yawned.  He arranged Dani to his liking, with her head on his chest.  She pulled a spare blanket over them.  “I think I overdid it.”

“Clearly.”  Dani settled in.  “You gonna be able to keep down dinner?”

Kade snorted.  “I’ll be lucky if I can keep down breakfast.”

“Then go to sleep.”  She closed her eyes, apparently ready to take her own advice.

Kade didn’t need to be told twice.  He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing.

A hand dropped on Cody’s shoulder.  The teen started violently.  His father chuckled.  “We seem to be spending a lot of time here.”

Cody picked at the doorjamb.  “Yeah.”

“Good talk?”

The blonde looked up at his father.  “…Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think. I have no sense of whether this chapter turned out good, bad, indifferent, or creepy.


	9. Arrival

It had taken Heatwave two days to notice that the ridiculous poster of Kade above his bookcase had been replaced.  A young, soot-streaked woman in bunker pants, department t-shirt, and protective gloves now graced the wall; she was sat upon the lightbar of a firetruck, gazing vigilantly over a burnt-out forest dale as the wind whipped loose strands of hair around her face.  Heatwave felt like that, minus the weather.  And the soot. 

He let his optics roam over the poster as his partner slept.  It was just after sunrise. 

Boulder and Graham, morning people the both of them, were out inspecting Cliffside Drive on the far side of the island.  Blades was on the helipad, compiling another communique to Bumblebee that he wouldn’t send.  Cody and the Chief were presumably still asleep, and Chase was recharging in a patch of sunlight.  The firehouse was pleasantly still and quiet.

The door opened.  A few footsteps and someone dropped something heavy on the floor.  Heatwave sent a silent ping to Boulder: they were just turning onto the Old Road.  This unannounced visitor obviously had the door codes, and Heatwave couldn’t be bothered any more than that.  The footsteps resumed, unapologetic.

The newcomer bypassed the door to the living quarters, approaching Heatwave.  “ _What the duce_?”  A woman.  She circled the bot, scrutinizing him.  For once, Heatwave didn’t have to _act_ like a robot, he had no desire to move from his post or interact with this human, but he couldn’t help tracking her movements with his optics.  Even though he didn’t move even a decimetron, she caught him at it.  “You watching me, big guy?”  She smiled up at his staring optics, with much the same tone and attitude Frankie used on Edison and Aristotle. 

She hadn’t realized he was sentient. 

Her eyes flicked to the side.  “Keeping an eye on him for me?”  She approached the screen.  “He’s a lucky son of a bitch,” she observed quietly to herself, or maybe still to Heatwave, despite believing him to be a sparkles machine.  Heatwave was left to assume she and Kade knew each other somehow.  She crossed muscular arms over her chest, rocking on her feet as she watched Kade and Dani snooze the morning away.

The alarms blared.

On the monitor, Dani scrambled over her brother, causing him to cry out in pain.

“Ooh…” The unnamed woman winced.  She hissed as Kade clawed a pillow down, curling desperately around it.  “That sucks, ducky,” she muttered.

A moment later, Dani burst through the door to the living quarters, racing into the roof-lift.  Kade’s probably-friend slipped inside before the door could swing shut.

“ _False alarm, team, stand down_ ,” Alarms going silent, Charlie Burns voice came over the main channel.  “ _Mister Feiffer’s new apprentice burnt a batch of doughnuts.  They’re all set_.”

“ _Chief Burns, there appears to be a trespasser in the firehouse_ ,” Chase reported.  Heatwave could feel a flurry of pings from Blades and Boulder hit the police bot.  “ _The intruder left several items in the garage_.”

“I’ll be right down.”

“ _It’s Wendy, Dad._ ”  Kade’s voice was slightly wheezy. 

Heatwave returned his attention to the monitor in time to see the redhead hand a com-badge to the woman now standing next to his bed.  “ _Hi, Chief; siblings_.”

“ _What is going **on**?_ ”  Blades whined.

“ _Come down to the garage and I’ll explain_.”

Several minutes later saw the three bots crowded around the Chief, speculating wildly as they waited for Boulder to pull in and drop off Graham.  The engineer took one look at the agitated aliens and high-tailed it for the kitchen.  His father rolled his eyes, before whistling sharply for the bots’ attention.

“That woman you just saw is Wendy Gadwall.  She’s a good friend of Kade’s.  Glacier Beach Fire Department was kind enough to send her to replace–”

“ _You’re replacing Kade!?_ ” Blades interrupted.

“Temporarily.”  Chief Burns had developed a very specific tone to deal with Blades melodrama.  “I’m confident there won’t be a problem, but I’d still like to ease Wendy into the whole talking-robot-alien-car thing.”  There was an uncomfortable shifting among the bots, and the Chief pressed on before the protests could begin.  “I don’t want you to hide from her, just don’t go explaining things to her until she asks.  She’s smart, she’ll figure it out pretty quick.”

Heatwave wasn’t sure how that all would work, but he trusted the Chief.  And at this very moment, he didn’t really care; this meeting was interrupting his observation duty.  When the policeman didn’t appear to be intending to continue, Heatwave turned back to the monitor.

The screen was empty of humans.  Panic shot through Heatwave’s circuits.  He looked around frantically, grasping at the air as if Kade might suddenly appear to be snatched up protectively in the firebot’s hands.

“ _Barnacle_.”  A woman’s voice floated through the monitor, grabbing Heatwave’s attention.  The two humans emerged from Kade’s bathroom.  The redhead was wrapped around the woman – _Wendy_ – from behind.  He was still nude, but she paid it no interest.  They walked as a unit, surprisingly fluidly, to the center of the room.  Kade let go, standing very carefully.  _Wendy_ spread out a towel on the floor.  She helped Kade sit upon it, counterbalancing the redhead with her nearly equal stature.  “ _I think I can salvage something better than a buzz cut, but it won’t be…_ ” she waved her hand around Kade’s head, making the signal for ‘crazy’, “ ** _this_**.”

“ _I could use a change_ ,” Kade grumbled, settling in as comfortably as he was able.

Wendy ran her fingers through his hair.  She laughed, “ _Wiretap got you good, huh?_ ”

“I do not know who this Wiretap person is, but we must be sure to keep a better eye on him in the future.”  Chase folded his hands behind his back, tactfully not commenting on Heatwave’s incriminatingly hunched posture.

On the screen, Kade chuckled, too.  “ _Just call me: **Bald Spot**_.”  The redhead said it dramatically, like some kind of superhero alter ego.

Wendy snorted.  “ _And I’ll be your sidekick: **The Braid**_ ,” she proclaimed as she set about reformatting his hair.  Heatwave watched, oddly entranced as she revealed small patches along Kade’s scalp where the hair had been ripped out, then trimmed away the evidence, until the sides of his head had been shorn like a spring sheep.  “ _I’ve never seen this pattern before._ ”

“ _Apparently, I got some new guy.  Doc McSwain caught him about halfway through.  She took off the rest of electrodes herself._ ”

“ _Lucky you._ ” Wendy used her fingers as a depth gauge to cut the strands on his crown.  When it was all over, the woman massaged Kade’s scalp, tiny chips of hair fluffing into the air like confetti.  He leaded back into her touch, coppery remnants glittering in swirling flurries.  “ _Where are you going?”_

“ _Could we just chill here a while?_ ”  With a soft hum of acquiescence, she scooted back against the side of the bed, gently pulling Kade to rest against her torso.  He settled back into the woman behind him, eyelids falling low as he concentrated on breathing.  “ _Thanks_.”


	10. Lunch

Wendy entered Kade’s room carrying two identical… sticks?  They were sticks with a purpose, obviously designed for something, Heatwave just had no idea what.  She leaned on them with her elbows, ankles crossed, grinning a comically winning smile at the battered man.

“ _Aw, you’re kidding_.”

“ _Nope_.”  Kade groaned theatrically.  Wendy shrugged, unapologetic.  “ _You can’t stand on your own, and I have shit to do._ ”  Kade opened his mouth.  “ ** _Everybody_** _, has shit to do_.”  She pulled the man up with one hand, holding the sticks in the other.  “ _It’s crutches or bedpan, pick you’re poison._ ”

Kade rolled his eyes, gingerly maneuvering the _crutches_ under his armpits.  Wendy walked backward in front of him, and the _crutches_ allowed him to lean on his hands as he walked.  Clever.  Humans had all manner of strange and interesting ways to work around their bodies’ invariably slow healing process.  Human healing was measured in weeks.  Always weeks.

Unless it was months.

Slowly, Kade hobbled out of his room, his friend staying just steps ahead, silently promising to catch him if he fell.  After half a dozen steps, the fireman picked up his left leg, bending the knee to keep it constantly behind him.  From then he hopped along on one foot.  Crutches, foot, crutches, foot, crutches, foot, and out of the camera’s sight.

Heatwave reached out mimicking the way Cody operated the com-tab, and to his delight, the video feed followed his partner.

The pair made their way steadily down a hallway, past one other door.  The hallway opened directly onto the kitchen.  Heatwave commanded the feed to change again and was granted the chance to see each member of the Burns family silently realize, one by one, that their convalescent kin had finally rejoined the world.  Kade grinned at them around the room.  It was ingenuous in a way the man usually wasn’t.  Heatwave was stunned to see pink seeping into his partner’s ears and cheeks. 

The man was flush with happy, a totally new expression.  The reunion stretched on pleasantly.  Heatwave wished he was there.  He pressed his hands to the screen instead, not noticing that he’d accidentally saved an image.

A wolf whistle shattered the moment.  “ _Ow-ow!  Now that that’s over.  Let’s eat_.”

Charlie laughed, shaking his head.  It wasn’t like that moment could have gone on forever, as much as anyone might have wanted it.  As the rest of the team bustled about making lunch and trying and failing to find another chair, Kade looked contemplatively around the room, gaze finally settling on the tabletop.

Kade tapped his finger thoughtfully on the glossy pine.  “ _Hey, guys?  I know it’s a little late, but; what happened to the bread_?”

Everything stopped.  Heatwave had completely forgotten about the tradition, about Midwinter Morning.  From the looks on their faces, so had the Burns family.

“ _Uh… Bread_?”  Kade pressed his lips together and gave a little shake of his head.  Wendy shrugged, dropping the subject and turning back to an array of sandwich fixings.  “ _You still a kitchen sink kind of_ _garbage disposal_?”  Heatwave didn’t even _try_ to understand what that conglomeration of words meant.  She appeared to take her friend’s silence as an answer.  “ _Thought so._ ”

“ _I have no idea_ ,” Charlie finally admitted.  “ _We were at the hospital with you the whole time.  I didn’t even think about it._ ”  There were consenting sounds around the room.  The bots had not thought about it either.  Well, Heatwave hadn’t.

“ _Mrs. Neederlander?_ ” Cody suggested.

“ _Has to be,_ ” the Chief agreed faintly.

Heatwave sent a ping to his team.  None of them knew.  Several bewildered minutes of sandwich-making later, Blades relayed a message from Frankie.  The bread had been waiting on every doorstep, though the bonfire had required a bit more effort.  He replayed Frankie’s enthusiastic description of how Mrs. Neederlander honey-badgered the whole town into shoveling out the logs and building a fire with them the old-fashioned way.  Apparently, it had taken until sunset.  The old woman had called it a sign.  Frankie didn’t understand, neither did Blades.  The other three bots stayed silent. 

Heatwave looked at the sunlight catching up Kade’s copper hair. 

He understood just fine.


	11. Duty

When the alarms lit up, Heatwave _did not_. want. to. go.  Knowing he had to didn’t change anything.  Heatwave transformed, keeping his attention firmly on the monitor.  Wendy appeared in Kade’s stead, boosting her gear-bag followed by herself up and into his cab.  Buckling her seatbelt, she grabbed his steering wheel, bending to look for the ignition.

Heatwave growled, “Hands off.”

The woman jerked back, hands held up in startled supplication.  “What the fuck?”

The firetruck didn’t answer, opting instead to speed out of the garage.  Bracing herself on his door and roof, Wendy adopted a grim game face.

\--

Heatwave stopped short, lurching the firewoman in his cab up against the steering wheel.  She swore sharply, but he ignored it in favor of the inhabitants of Griffin Rock.  His job.  His mission.

His utter inability to enter a house.

With an irritated huff, Wendy jumped down from Heatwave’s cab, jamming her helmet onto the lingering sleep-ruffles in her hair.  Heatwave watched on silently as she approached two men crouched by a basement window.  Pretending to be a heartless machine had never been so easy.

“What’s going on?” Wendy asked, staying a few steps from the men.  The one closer to her started violently, but the other waved her closer, speaking hurriedly.

“There’s a crack in the foundation.”  He pointed in through the open cellar window.  “Ice finally got to it.  Now, all the water beneath the frost line is pouring in.”

Wendy leaned over the startled man’s back.  “That explains the crack, then.”

“Who the hell are you?” the startled man demanded, twisting to look up at her.  “Where’re the Burnses?”

“Kade’s on medical,” Wendy replied with a glance.  “I’m filling in.  The others are on their way.”  The firewoman turned away from the basement, walking calmly back to Heatwave.  “Alright, Kade, where’s your dump tank strainer?”  And she started opening Heatwave’s compartments.  She rifled through each one, closing the panels with any annoyed snap she or Kade must have learned from the other.  When she reached the final compartment, she gave an annoyed growl before wrenching Heatwave’s passenger side door open and searching beneath his seats.  “You’ve got to be shitting me.” 

The woman was angry, but Heatwave had no real idea what about.  She couldn’t find something she wanted, but the firebot had all his parts present and accounted for.  And what on Cybertron was a dump tank and why would it need to be put under stress in someone’s basement?

Wendy stepped up on the running board, leaning across his floorboards to fumble above her head for the radio microphone.  She caught it rather quickly, despite the awkward reach.  “Griffin Rock Engine One to Griffin Rock Comm.”

There was a long pause.  “Uh…” Cody’s voice hesitated on the line.  “Go ahead?”

“I’ve got a flooded basement and no low-level strainer.  I’m going to need someone to bring one down.”

There was an even longer pause.  “I… don’t know what that is.”

Wendy groaned, cursing creatively under her breath.  “Ask your brother, Cody,” she managed with bad grace, but relative politeness.  During the several minutes it took for the young human to reply, Wendy rifled through the contents of Heatwave’s cab, mumbling in disgust as she flicked petrified bits of food onto the ground outside.

“Wendy?”  Cody asked cautiously.  The woman answered by giving the radio and impatient look.  “He said it got blow up during the whole volcano thing.”  Her face expression morphed to something wildly incredulous.  After a drawn out second, she mouthed ‘volcano thing?’

With an irate moan, Wendy keyed the microphone.  “I can make do with some strong coarse fabric.”

“Like–” Cody drew the word out nervously, apparently aware that Kade’s friend was far more thoroughly furious than his brother ever got.

“Fuckin’ little one-horse techno town,” Wendy mumbled.  Her helmet chose that moment to lose its precarious perch atop her mussed black locks, clattering to the floorboards and scraping a bloody cut down the side of her nose.  She grabbed it and slammed it three times against heatwave’s glove box in a momentary rage.

Heatwave held in every sound he wanted to make.  That _hurt_.

Wendy pulled nastily at her thick braid, fingers punching through the black strands as she regained her composure.  A few more hard jerks and she keyed the mic, again.  “A burlap sack will do,” she said tersely.

“Sh–sure.”  Cody hastily cut the connection.

Wendy rolled onto her back, breathing harshly, tawny face pink, and still occasionally yanking her braid.

437 seconds later – Heatwave was getting better at his Earth-times – the radio fuzzed back to life.  Graham’s soothing tones filtered down the line.  “Wendy?  Cody said you needed burlap.  Dad’s bringing it now.  He’ll be there in a few minutes.  I’ll get some tools together and come down with Boulder.  Does anyone need medical attention.”

Wendy let out a gusty sigh.  She reached up, retrieving the microphone from its hook.  Heatwave hadn’t even noticed her replace it.  Of course, he’d been more concerned about her state of imminent violence.  Another sigh, then the firewoman spoke woodenly into the microphone.  “Does Kade need medical attention?”

Heatwave could imagine Graham looking over his shoulder in the pause.  “Not at the moment.”

“Then I have no idea.  I didn’t see any patients or significant mechanism or injury, but you never know.”

“Alright.”  Heatwave felt Graham send a signal along the bots commlink. 

How strange, he also hadn’t realized Wendy was using the UHF radio that came with his vehicle mode.  Heatwave had forgotten about it.  The comm-badges were compatible with Cybertronian frequencies, and as those were much more secure, they hadn’t use human communications amongst themselves in months.

“Dani and Blades are on their way,” Graham continued.  “Is there anything else I can do from here?”

“Tell me this thing has 5-inch flexible hard suction on it.”

Another awkward pause.  “I’ll… go get that.”

Wendy made a guttural noise that wasn’t _quite_ defeated.  “Thanks.”  The line went dead again.

Heatwave watched curiously, now that the danger had passed.  The woman just laid upon his salty, dirt streaked floorboards, head bent uncomfortably against the gearbox and legs hanging out the open door as the cold air rushed in like she couldn’t feel a thing.  She didn’t move or speak, just stared deadly at a cardinal hopping poking about on a snowy holly bush.  Heatwave was proud of himself for knowing both the bird and the bush, although, both were admittedly easy classifications.

About five minutes later, Chief Burns arrived.  He took one look at Wendy and walked away without a word.  When Dani arrived, the Chief stopped her from approaching the other woman.  Just slightly over fifteen minutes after he’d abandoned the radio Graham arrived.  His father gave him a cautious nod, and he approached Heatwave’s cab, burlap and suction line in hand.

Wendy had slid, very slowly over the intermission, apparently making no effort to fight gravity and now stared blankly at Heatwave’s headliner.  Graham looked her over skeptically, but apparently decided it was best to ignore the tantrum entirely.

“I’ve got your suction line and straining material and some duct tape,” he hefted the items slung over his shoulders.  “A bit of rope, and a forestry pump in Boulder’s scoop.”

“This thing doesn’t have a pump either?” she asked, incredulousness buried under her flat tone.

“It… _does_ ,” Graham raised an eyebrow in the way he used when unsure what was causing a person’s people-problem, “but I figured this would be easier.”

Wendy took a bracing breath.  “Alright.”  She let the air out in a cleansing gust.  “Enough of this bullshit.  Let’s get to work.”  The woman slid from the cab, dropping lightly to her feet.  Suddenly, she was herself again.

“You okay?” Graham asked kindly.

“Yeah,” Wendy smiled sheepishly at him.  “Just worried about your brother.”  She placed her hands on her hips, then turned to eye Heatwave shrewdly.  “And then I find this.”  She shook her head and Heatwave suddenly wanted to know very badly what she was thinking, because it didn’t seem to be about temperamental firetrucks.  “I had a bit of a fit.  Sorry.  I just wish I understood what the hell was going on in his life.”

“Wendy?” Graham drew her attention back gently.  “He’s fine.”

“My best friend fell off the damn roof again.  Nothing is fucking fine, Graham.” 

Wendy made it clear she was done with the conversation by taking the unwieldy black tubing from him and shoving it between yellow-clad thighs.  “Alright, give me the sack.”  He handed it to her and she stockinged it over the tubing, pulling it taught across the end.  “Tape it right behind my hands to keep it tight and then well attach it to the actual line.” 

With teamwork and most of a roll of duct tape, they had their makeshift strainer in the basement and the portable pump churning in 694 seconds.  Unfortunately, the basement took far longer than that to clear out.

Fortunately, the trouble seemed to be over and Heatwave watched with cautious optimism as Wendy cheerfully discussed the best way to patch the leak with the assembled Burnses.  When it was all over and done with, she climbed gamely from the basement, a streak of cement drying on her cheek.  She checked to make sure she wouldn’t smear anything irremovable on Heatwave’s upholstery before hoisting herself into his cab.

Dani, Graham, and the Chief had gathered together, speaking quietly, Heatwave assumed about the emotional stability of the woman he suddenly had to call partner, however temporarily.

Slag it all.  Heatwave reversed sharply, pulling the wheel out of Wendy’s hands as he turned around.  She pushed them to the ceiling again, wedging herself vertically to prevent flying about the cabin.  Through the window, she gave the Burnses a wild-eyed look, startled and unable to hide it.  Chief Burns stared back, blinking widely as his children dodged sharply toward the house.  Heatwave found he couldn’t care that he was giving the Chief a reason to be angry at him instead of the interloper in his cab. 

This wasn’t right.  It wasn’t how it was supposed to be.  Kade never called in the entire team for a job Heatwave could do on his own, and he was _certainly_ capable of siphoning the water out of someone’s basement.  It wasn’t fair.  And it took too long.  And damnit what kind of trouble had Kade gotten into with no one to look after him?  Because Primus knew the man didn’t listen to Cody.  The fiery redhead didn’t listen to anyone but his father.  And he didn’t think.  And he wasn’t well.  And…

And Heatwave drove too fast.


	12. Revealed

They were the first ones back to the firehouse.  Wendy leapt out of Heatwave’s cab almost before he had stopped moving and marched into the living quarters.  Whatever was rusting her bumper now was no concern of his.  Heatwave scrambled back to his spot, paging through the firehouse feeds until he found Kade.  He was _exactly_ where they had left him, and Heatwave’s mind went blissfully blank.  On the monitor, Wendy strode into the kitchen.

“ _I’ve got a bone to pick with you_.”  Wendy flapped her gloves down on the table.

The firewoman’s tone brought Kade’s head up from where he was contemplating the bowl of soggy Hominy Flakes he’d been stirring since they left.  Wide-eyed, he asked, “ _Why_?” 

She gave him an open-mouthed stare, momentarily flummoxed.  Kade took the opportunity to put his bowl of mush in the sink.  As he shuffled back toward her, the brunette shook her head, getting back on track.

“ _You expect me to work without a partner_?”  Wendy’s handsome face was… displeased.

“ _Heatwave’s your partner_.” Kade said, not prefacing the situation.

“ _He’s a truck_.”

“ _He’s an alien_.” 

“ _He’s a **truck**_.”  Wendy gesticulated emphatically as the argument escalated.  “ _What am I going to do: fall through the floor and wait for him to dig me out with one tire_?”

Kade stiffened, the indignant pink that had been gathering in his cheeks going suddenly pale.  His freckles flashed into existence for a moment. 

“ _And he hates me_.”

Color righting itself, the man groaned, dropping his head into one hand.  The redhead scrubbed at the less damaged side of his face.  “ _Alright_.”  He straightened up, a plan he didn’t much like on his face.  “ _We’ve still got all the old rigs down at Danielson’s.  I’ve got some of them running.  You can drive one of those_.”

Wendy rolled her wrist, face still hard, clearly expecting something more.

“ ** _But_** _Heatwave still goes with you_.”  Her speaking hands moved to her hips.  Kade made an unhappy noise, conceding.  “ ** _And_** _we’ll get ahold of Dottie, so we can find you another partner_.”  She grinned, bright and rewarding.  “ _Yeah, yeah, I’m not in the mood_.”  Despite his words, Kade did look and sound much happier.  “ _I’ll have Graham take you.  He should be able to rattle off a bunch of specifications_.”

“ _Y’know, for a ladder truck, your partner’s a little guy_.”

Kade laughed out loud.  With a grimace, he draped himself around Wendy, using her solid body to brace his damaged chest.  She laughed, too, at him.  As they calmed, Kade tucked his face into her neck, visibly still trying to soak in a friend he hadn’t seen in a while.

“ ** _So_** ,” she leaned back with a sly tone.  “ _Aliens_?”

Kade’s head popped up with a wicked grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have NOT given up on this story. Things are really crazy in my life, and will continue to be until at least August. I skipped sleeping to write this update, so please let me know about any errors. 
> 
> I know where I'm going long-term, but I'm having trouble deciding what happens next. Any ideas from the peanut gallery?
> 
> Also, what is with Netflix and only having one season of all the good shows? :/


	13. Shower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The devil's in the details, isn't it. Or at least those simple little things...

Graham leaned his back against the doorjamb as Wendy pulled a pair of brightly colored wool socks to her knees.  She looked up, meeting Graham’s eyes from across the room.

“Hey, Wend?” Kade called from the bathroom.  He was going to attempt his first solo shower since the accident.

“Yo!”

“Can you stop at sixty-three Chestnut Drive?  My phone wasn’t in the stuff from the hospital.  I’m hoping I dropped it there.”

“What: in a snowbank?”  She gave the bathroom a cockeyed look, as she swiftly braided her long black hair.

“Probably.”  Kade was already starting to sound tired, though he feigned buoyancy.

“10-4, buddy.”  She crossed the room, silently ‘borrowing’ a bandana.  “Where’s your dad?” she muttered to Graham.  “No way are we leaving Banana Boy alone.”

The engineer mouthed, ‘Banana Boy?’ to himself as she passed.  “He went to the bakery.”  Graham calculated quickly.  “He’ll be back in a couple minutes.” 

Wendy paused, taking a few steps back toward Kade’s room.  She stopped, looking askance on the empty room.  Graham tried to match her line of vision and was surprised to find he could see all the way from the hall to the bathroom mirror.  In the sliver of reflection Graham could see his brother brushing his teeth.

“How long is a few minutes?”  Wendy looked deeply concerned.

“Less than five,” Graham estimated, shrugging; even relatively clean, Kade took longer than that to shower.

“Does Kade know he’s going to be alone?”  She continued to watch the redhead’s reflection.  He was stripping down carefully.

Kade threw his flannel pants at his bed.  They landed on the floor, only halfway there.  Wendy grinned, then laughed quietly when Kade groused, “Fine, be that way,” at his sleepwear.

“Yeah,” Graham assured.  At least, he assumed so.  Kade’s reflection disappeared, and they heard the water turn on.  “C’mon, we need to get to Danielson’s before Boulder and I have to go on patrol.”  Graham tugged on her elbow and Wendy reluctantly allowed herself to be pulled away.

\--

Kade leaned against the wall.  Primus, he was tired.  He should _not be_ this tired.  He’d done harder things in his life.  Hell, he’d done harder things this month.  Baking bread was harder than this.  Going to the dentist was harder than this.  Eating was not harder than this, but he wasn’t hungry.  Giving Graham a _noogie_ was harder than this.

“Dad!” the redhead called.

Kade slid down the wall, suds skidding along his nose.  He hoped his father heard him.  He’d be okay here, really, it wasn’t like he was going to pass out and drown, but the water wasn’t particularly warm at floor level.  Kade closed his eyes against the soap.  It slipped into his ear, the crackling combined with the sound of the shower rendering him mostly deaf.

“Dad!” the fireman called again.  Maybe he wasn’t being loud enough?  But he didn’t want to scream, because he was alright, really.  Kade breathed deeply through his mouth.  _Why_ was he so tired?  It was just bathing, he’d been doing it his whole life.  Lather, rinse, repeat: no problem. 

Didn’t change that he was exhausted, now.

“Dad!”  That was the last time.  He was yelling quieter, and probably no one was home.  Rescues and all that…

. . .

.  .  .

 

“Kade?” 

Warm hands were on his shoulders.  He hadn’t heard anyone come in.  Kade was tipped forward, chest leaning heavily against a thick arm.  The other hand shuffled through his hair, helping to sluice the invisible remains of lather away.

“It’s alright, son.”


	14. Reheat

Charlie pulled Kade to his feet.  The man wobbled and swayed right into his father’s waiting arms.  They stumbled out of the shower.   Charlie used his bodyweight to pin Kade against the counter as he quickly dried his son’s sopping red hair.  He swiped the towel over what skin he could reach before tossing it aside.  Good enough. 

There wasn’t room to pick his eldest up. 

Charlie pulled his son’s arms over his shoulders and tried to walk them to the bed.  It wound up being a graceless stumble.  They nearly fell twice, and the doorjamb was probably going to leave a bruise up the whole left side of Charlie’s back.  He let Kade tumble onto the unmade bed.

The injured man went down without so much as a wince.  Kade laid there breathing hard, eyes at half-mast.  Charlie lifted his son’s legs onto the bed and pulled the covers over him, murmuring nonspecific praise.  Kicking off his boots, Charlie crawled onto the bed, bracketing his son and throwing yet another blanket over them both.

Kade was visibly exhausted and pale.  Blue clung about his lips and nose.  Charlie covered the young man’s ears with his hands.  They were icy and made the father in him shiver with sympathy.  Charlie continued to whisper love and pride for his oldest son, hot breath rolling over freckles and not doing hardly anything.  He pressed their foreheads together feeling the heat seep out of his own skull, stolen by the first best thing in his life.

Charlie ranked his children chronologically.

The policeman allowed his body to settle over Kade’s, as carefully as he was able.  Kade was in no condition to protest the weight or report any aggravation of his injuries, but as it was the young man gave a relieved little sigh, shivers forced into submission by the pressure.  Charlie breathed a relieved sigh of his own, though somewhat limited.  He buried his face in his son’s cool neck.

This was a nightmare.

There had to be an end.  They had been making progress, such good progress.  And now here Charlie was, peeling Kade off the floor tiles and trying care the warmth back into him.  All over a shower.  A bloody shower.  How long had Kade been in there?  Had he felt abandoned?  Betrayed?  Ashamed?  Before he became insensate.  Charlie squeezed his closed eyes against tears.  Kade was semiconscious and Charlie would be damned before his son saw him cry.

“’M’ok,” Kade mumbled, lifting his hand to clutch his father’s hair.

That was when Charlie realized he had been unsuccessful.  There were tears on Kade’s neck when his son _needed_ him to be strong.  “I’m sorry,” Charlie breathed, mindful of his proximity to Kade’s ear.  The hand in his hair tugged without much strength.  Charlie lifted his head to look down into the redhead’s face.

Kade smiled, an exhausted grin.  Despite it all, his eyes sparkled as he took a breath deep enough to lift his father’s dense weight.

A moment of blind panic stole Charlie’s mind.  He was smothering Kade, crushing the breath from him!  But as he tried to push up, get away, Kade wrapped an arm around his back, clamping down like a python.

“Feels good,” Kade slurred, dropping quickly toward sleep. 

Charlie froze, staring down at his son’s face.  What?  But there was a soft smile creeping about Kade’s lips, and Charlie had no doubt that someone would be sleeping in this very spot come bedtime.  Probably himself, if he hadn’t napped himself wide awake by then.  It would take hours to warm Kade up and Charlie had absolutely no intention of moving before every one of his son’s freckles had completely disappeared… 

Perhaps Mrs. Neederlander could be convinced to make them dinner again?  Kade was going to need something gentle and hot when he finally regained full consciousness.

\--

Mrs. Neederlander was indeed convinced, and this time produced something that could cautiously be described as thin couscous.  Whatever it was it flowed like stew but was made of tiny round noodles and chicken broth and all meat and veg that made soup delicious.  Kade leaned against Wendy’s chest as he ate with shaking hands, her bowl delectably warm against his scalp as she used him for a table.

She seemed contrite for leaving him alone, beneath her usual affably unflappable air, but Charlie didn’t quite understand why.  He contemplated it as he at his own bowl against the doorjamb.  She had done what she was supposed to do with her day.  Kade couldn’t be her responsibility every minute.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone in there,” she confessed to Kade, as if feeling the weight of his father’s confusion.

He captured her wrist, pulling it down to nip playfully at the inside of her arm.  “I’m fine.” 

She swatted him.

“My instincts didn’t like it, but Graham said your Dad would be home.”

“And he was.”  Kade dismissed her concern, munching on a sweet roll from the pile they were sharing.

“In a few minutes, not forty.”

Charlie went cold, the hot soup sitting like boiled cement in his stomach.  He’d seen Kade stand for no more than fifteen minutes at a go, with crutches.  That meant he’d been collapsed on the floor for at least twenty-five.  As a result of the accident, Kade had no control of his internal temperature.

“We’re lucky you’re not dead,” Wendy said, echoing Charlie’s own thoughts.

For a second time, Kade dismissed her worry by waving his latest nosh.  “He came.  I’m not.  I have to stop being an invalid sometime.” Kade said ‘invalid’ in much the same way he said ‘leeches’.  “No harm, no foul.”  Wendy pulled out a hair near his ear.  “Ow!  What was that for.”

“You know what.”  She scowled down at him.

Already glaring over his shoulder, Kade twisted around to match her eye to eye.  “No, I don’t know what.”

Their gazes stayed locked for nearly a minute.

Wendy softened.  “You really don’t, do you?”  Kade shrugged.  “I love you anyway, you nincompoop.”  Charlie could tell by the tilt of Kade’s head that he had rolled his eyes.  “Finish your soup.”

“That rhymes,” Kade pointed out, settling down as if the argument had never happened.

Slowly, Charlie relaxed, watching the two young firefighters eat dinner in bed.  He wondered how Wendy loved Kade, and how much.  And if Kade knew.  At this moment, Charlie had never seen so much of himself in Kade.  The redhead took after his mother, but here and now, Charlie saw himself and his wife, black and red hair reversed, immortalized in the next generation.

Then Kade swallowed his last bite and asked about the Tri-Beaches Charity Calendar and Wendy’s description and expression had Charlie seriously doubting that the young woman’s heart was set on any man.  Kade laughed uproariously at the details, pulling Wendy’s calves across his chest to brace his broken ribs, mindless of the fact that he was probably crushing her.  And she let him, continuing her story about a particular young man who fit a particular cliché and was absolutely edible once they’d stolen his shirt and glasses.

Cody, who’d come to eat leaning against Charlie’s side, gagged.  “I’m out,” he declared, turning to leave, a stricken look on his face.

“Good,” Mrs. Neederlander answered, startling the police officer and his youngest son.  “More room for me.”  She brushed past them into the room and Cody hurried away to the relative safety – and additional portions – of the kitchen.  Mrs. Neederlander deposited herself on the side of the bed.  The two young firefighters accepted her presence without hesitation, quickly adding detail to allow the old woman to envision their friends.

In that one conversation the resemblance escaped without Charlie’s notice.  Perhaps, it had never been there at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who's unfamiliar, Fireman's charity calendars are usually topless and muscular. I imagine Kade is living vicariously through Wendy's descriptions.
> 
> EDIT: So, I'm not sure I like these last few chapters, especially chapter 11. I really hadn't intended to give much insight into Wendy's character. I intended her to be very minor, and pretty enigmatic and friendly. Chapter 11 seems to be more a reflection of how I've been feeling (no, Wendy isn't me) and not very much what I'd intended. I'm thinking about editing it heavily or removing it all together. What do you think?

**Author's Note:**

> Hope I did alright on the characterization. Let me know what you think, and any other mistakes you find!
> 
> Note: Massive formatting problems in Microsoft Edge. Switched to Internet Explorer, rich text button, paste and done. Hope that helps somebody.


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